


Demons

by DireFennec



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Depression, Erwin Week, Gore, Spoilers for chapter 84, Titanwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 06:37:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8276285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DireFennec/pseuds/DireFennec
Summary: Erwin struggles to come to terms with Levi's choice





	

“Somebody help me! Save me!”

_Screams, ear piecing screams that turned his blood cold. A desperate clawing at the back of his teeth. Legs thrashing at the back of his throat_.

Night after night Erwin had the same nightmare. Nightmare wasn’t the right word. It had been real. In his waking hours his memories of that day were hazy at best. He couldn’t tell what had been true, and what had once been gaps that his own traitorous mind had filled in later.

_The screaming didn’t stop, even after blood began to pour from his lips and pool under his tongue. He could feel something snap under the immense pressure of his jaw and the screaming stopped._

Erwin woke suddenly. A thin film of sweat clung to him, as it had so many nights before. He rubbed his eyes and dragged his hand down his face. He couldn’t breathe. He moved to get off the bed and stopped when he felt resistance. He felt momentary confusion as he felt Levi’s weight on his right arm. He still hadn’t gotten used to having it back. Erwin carefully eased his arm from under Levi, making sure not to wake him. Levi had had trouble sleeping too.

He eased himself off the bed and quietly made his way to the window. He opened it slightly, just enough to feel the cold night air creep in. He breathed in deep, feeling the cold air burning his lungs. He was alive, when so many weren’t. What gave him that right? He raised his right hand and looked at it with disgust. Erwin thought of all the men and women he had sent to their deaths. His speech before that final charge, that final push, that _suicide_ mission. All of them, dead. And here he was strolling back from Shiganshina with two arms.

He truly was a demon now, he thought to himself in the dark. A monster. Although he had always felt like that, now he had the form to go with it. The new colossal titan. He felt the urge to shatter the glass of the window.

He felt bile rise hot in the back of his throat as he remembered, or maybe just imagined, Bertholdt’s screams of terror in his final moments. He may have torn down the walls, but he was still _human_. He couldn’t have been older than nine or ten at the time of wall Maria’s breach. A _child_. A brainwashed child probably fighting to keep his family safe, if Grisha’s books told the truth.

Erwin was pulled from his mental turmoil momentarily by a soft rustling noise behind him. Levi curled up tighter and pulled the bed covers closer to him. Erwin quickly closed the window, he hadn’t noticed the chill in the room. He sat back on the window sill and looked at Levi. His thoughts betrayed him as feelings of anger and betrayal sparked through him, followed by immense guilt.

In his darkest moments he blamed Levi for dragging him back from death, for turning him into this monster after he had let _everything_ go. After Levi had encouraged him to let go. In the end the guilt won. He had forced the choice on Levi and though Levi tried to hide it he could tell he suffered with the consequences. Another sin to add to his list, Erwin supposed. He would eventually pay for this too.

Or maybe this was his punishment. Maybe this was his hell. To become the very thing he dedicated his heart, his life, to fighting. Maybe there was no afterlife. He had been so close to death and had felt only cold nothingness. Perhaps this was his penance for all the death and pain he’s caused. It was what he deserved then, he thought.

“Did you ever see Eren as a monster?” Erwin’s eyes snapped up to meet Levi’s, staring at him from the bed.

“Ah, did the cold wake you? I opened the window for a bit,” Erwin avoided his question. He cursed Levi’s ability to read people so well. It was a skill he absolutely needed in the underground and one he continued to employ with Erwin. Although he did maintain that Erwin was difficult to read, Erwin felt that Levi hit the nail on the head far too often for his liking. He never liked worrying him.

“Didn’t answer my question,” Levi narrowed his eyes.

Erwin shook his head, “No, I’ve never seen him like that”. He hadn’t, not once. He knew what Levi was getting at, and felt a pang in his chest.

“Well there you go. Stop this shit, Erwin,” Erwin couldn’t help but smile slightly, Levi never was particularly eloquent even in serious or emotional conversations.

Levi watched Erwin intently in the silence that followed. As a commander, Erwin never had been one to voice his problems or vulnerabilities, until it came to Levi. On the rare occasion that he felt he needed to talk, it was Levi he went to. He often felt guilty later for burdening him with his problems, though he knew Levi would call that bullshit.

“I can’t,” Erwin’s voice was quiet. He had never felt lower. He needed to talk, needed to scream really, but didn’t think he deserved solace in any form. He wanted to talk to Levi, but it was through Levi’s choice that he was here now. “I don’t want you to think you made the wrong choic-”

“I didn’t make the wrong choice,” Levi’s interjection came abruptly. Erwin wondered in the back of his mind if Levi was telling him that, or telling himself.

“I’m still having nightmares about it,” He admitted it, and felt ridiculous. How many people had he commanded to die in that one suicide charge alone? And he’s haunted by this? “I can hear him screami-”

“He was unconscious, Erwin,” Levi cut him off again. “He wasn’t awake, he wasn’t aware.” Erwin stared at him. Levi may have been good at reading people, but he wasn’t as good at hiding his own feelings, particularly when it came to Erwin. Erwin knew he was lying. “And besides, Eren had no memory of eating his old man. Or going rogue in Trost. What makes you think you’re special?” He was trying and Erwin was genuinely grateful. He didn’t deserve him.

Even without reading Levi, Erwin knew it was all a lie. He had heard Levi up in the middle of the night, retching in the bathroom. He knew it was the choice. The choice Erwin had forced on him. Bertholdt had been awake and Levi was just as disturbed by it as he was. They had seen death before, seen people killed by the titans before, but this was different. Levi had condemned Berthold to a horrific death and Erwin had carried it out with no say in the matter. The anger reared its ugly head again, but Erwin told himself it was Levi’s choice to make. He told himself again, for the hundredth time he _forced_ Levi into this situation.

Erwin pinched the bridge of his nose and returned to the bed. He wrapped his arms around Levi and kissed his forehead. “Thank you.” He said quietly. They both lay awake in silence for a while. Eventually Erwin fell asleep again, falling once more into dreams filled with screaming and blood.

He awoke with a start once again feeling utterly exhausted. He turned to face Levi but was greeted with an empty spot on the bed. The self-loathing darkness in the back of his mind that had clung their so long reared its head again and he wondered what it really was that made Levi so sickened. Was it what he had done? What _they_ had done. Or was it simply the fact that he was spending his nights lying next to a monster?


End file.
